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hypnosec writes with news that India's Central Bureau of Investigation has ordered a preliminary enquiry (PE) against Google for violating Indian laws by mapping sensitive areas and defence installations in the country. As per the PE, registered on the basis of a complaint made by the Surveyor General of India's office to the Union Home Ministry, Google has been accused of organizing a mapping competition dubbed 'Mapathon' in February-March 2013 without taking prior permission from Survey of India, country's official mapping agency. The mapping competition required citizens to map their neighbourhoods, especially details related to hospitals and restaurants. The Survey of India (SoI), alarmed by the event, asked the company to share its event details. While going through the details the watchdog found that there were several coordinates having details of sensitive defence installations which are out of the public domain."

The government body trying to protect its turf from competition did not cite any privacy issues, either. It cited security issues, which of course it could not describe in detail because security.

Did Google specifically solicit information about defense installations, perhaps as a particular example of hospitals or restaurants? If not, did Google have any way to know which information about which installations is considered secret? (Obviously, the government would never publish such a list for general consumption, because that would both reveal the data that they want to protect and distinguish the sensitive data from information that they consider non-sensitive.) Did Google republish this data, or is the perceived offense merely that Google has the data?